Over 500 farmers from the region including several women and children are leaving on Wednesday night for Delhi under the umbrella organisation Karnataka Rayat Sena (KRS).
The dispute over Mahadayi river which has been on the boil since the 80s, has reached a flash point in the parched North Karnataka region in the run-up to the state Assembly elections. The farmers here want Karnataka to build a series of dams, canals and barrages to route Mahadayi river water to the Malaprabha basin and the namesake dam off Saundatti in Belgaum district to meet the drinking and irrigation requirements of the water-scarce Bagalkot, Gadag, Dharwad and Belgaum districts.
Over 500 farmers from the region including several women and children are leaving on Wednesday night for Delhi under the umbrella organisation Karnataka Rayat Sena (KRS). They have been given an appointment to meet President Ram Nath Kovind on April 29 where they will submit a memorandum, KRS chairperson Veeresh Sobradamat told DNA. "In the memorandum, we have asked the Centre to intervene and give us water as the region has seen several farmer suicides because of lack of water. If the Centre can't do that, they should allow us to end our lives."
The KRS also plans to protest on Parliament Street to highlight the issue which they say both the Congress and BJP use the Mahadayi issue to point fingers at each other without doing anything to resolve it.
On Tuesday Chief Minister Siddaramiah had told DNA in Badami soon after filing his nomination that PM Narendra Modi should intervene and help the farmers in distress since Goa is ruled by the BJP. "If the Prime Minister desires he can call both the CMs and resolve the issue. But the BJP candidate there will have to explain why he is not doing that."
Sure enough when DNA spoke to the CC Patil, the BJP candidate from Nargund assembly constituency where a nonstop agitation has been going on since July 16, 2015 over Mahadayi waters, he was defensive. Patil, readers may recall had made headlines with fellow cabinet minister Laxman Savadi at a session of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly in February 2012 after a camera caught the duo watching pornographic clips on a mobile phone and had to resign. "The Mahadayi issue has been around since the 80s and the Congress which is pointing fingers at me and my party has been in power in the Centre, Goa and Karnataka simultaneously in the interim. Why have they not solved the issue since then?"
His rival and sitting MLA BR Yavagal simply echoed CM Siddaramiah and brushed off allegations that the Congress has done nothing. Incidentally both Patil and Yavagal have alternately had two terms each in the constituency since 1994 till 2013.
"It almost seems like both parties are taking us for a ride every assembly and Lok Sabha election," complained Hussain Laxman Tandoori, 82 a local jowar farmer from Nargund who added, "No wonder both Rahul Gandhi and Narendra Modi have not planned any rallies in this region."
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